MasterCard on Monday
announced facial recognition and fingerprint technology that essentially
would allow customers to take selfies to help authenticate their
identity when engaged in mobile shopping.

The rollout, which is planned for this summer in the U.S., Canada and
part of Europe, follows a pilot of biometrics by MasterCard and
International Card Services with Dutch participants.

The 750 ABN AMRO cardholders who took part in the pilot were able to
complete their purchases without PIN codes, passwords or confirmation
codes, MasterCard said.
Ninety percent of the participants said they preferred using
biometric identification over passwords, and 75 percent said they
believed biometric identification decreased fraud, the company said.

"The Dutch consumer is very progressive in embracing new technologies," said Arjan Bol, country manager for MasterCard.

The company is looking into integrating the technology into apps for
banking and technology companies to make it easier to use a selfie or
fingerprint for authentication